Case Number 18691: Small Claims Court

THE COLLECTOR (2009)

The Charge

He always takes one.

The Case

Handyman Arkin (Josh Stewart, Full Count) is hired to do some repairs
and watch over the house of a gem dealer while the rich guy and his family take
a vacation. But Arkin's girlfriend has racked up a debt to a loan shark, so
Arkin makes a deal with a mobster to break into the house and steal an expensive
jewel.

But when Arkin arrives this dark, rainy night, he finds not an empty house
with a bauble in the safe, but a house of horrors -- with a madman inexplicably
abusing everyone in sight, including the rich guy, his wife, teenage daughter,
and preteen moppet Hannah (Karley Scott Collins, Pulse 3).

Yes, it's superhuman sadist time again, and the micro-budgeted The
Collector is a not-half-bad entry in the crowded genre.

This go 'round, it's a maniac in a leather bondage hood who lets the good
times roll by setting up elaborate booby traps in someone's house and doing
unspeakable things with sharp objects to anyone who ventures by. Fortunately,
Arkin, our hero-by-default, has the constitution of a bull and the cunning of a
canary. He suffers mightily at the hands and gizmos of the masked maniac, but
his heroic side takes over his petty thief side, and he stays on to try to
rescue the hapless and helpless family.

As far as these things go, The Collector pretty well delivers the
goods. Pointy objects large and small abound, and while a spike can be deadly, a
fish hook can be squirmier. Gallons of stage blood are let loose, and the
soundtrack is caked with agonized screams.

Of course, The Collector's weakness is the same weakness that
afflicts virtually all torture porn films: logic.

In addition to being the first of its kind, Saw worked so well
because there was a motivation behind the grue, a puzzle that slowly came
together. Jigsaw doesn't maim and kill for jollies, as he points out in one of
the sequels; there's a method to his madness, his victims and their challenges
are chosen specifically, and it's possible to survive his traps. Of course, the
elaborate traps themselves are ridiculous, and the thought of setting them up,
laughable ("I'd like a 50 gallon vat of sulphuric acid. Do you deliver?
Great. Just set it down next to the rack."), but we suspend our disbelief
because "the game" is so intriguing.

The Collector gets the whole traps thing right. Perhaps the best
sequence is early in the film, as Arkin creeps through the house and encounters
the various set ups, occasionally suffering mild to moderate injury. Spider
webbing and insect imagery figure heavily into the lethal design.

If only the plot devices were as elaborate as the torture devices. Despite a
quick explanation around mid-point and a completely useless reveal near the end,
we don't know anything about the killer or his motivations. We're told that he's
a madman who "collects people" -- albeit, people who are covered in
bloody gashes and have significant limbs and digits missing. But why does he
"collect people," and why these particular people? This we don't find
out, and the arbitrary nature of the bloodletting makes The Collector
more an heir to the mindless slashings of a Friday the 13th movie than a
remix of generation Saw.

But if you're a fan of lingering-death-and-pain high jinx, you could do
worse than The Collector. Co-scripted by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick
Melton -- who also co-wrote Saw IV through VII -- and directed by
Dunstan, The Collector sustains suspense through most of its running
time. It's nicely shot and edited, and Dunstan makes good use of his primarily
single-set location. If you're inclined to ask questions like, "How did the
lunatic have the time to set up all this rigmarole, and why bother when the prey
is a fairly docile family of four?" then you're probably not a fan of
torturesploitation to begin with.

The disc sports a very nice looking transfer -- particularly solid, given
that much of the film is low-light -- but a weak audio track, with music playing
at a far higher level than dialogue. Extras include a commentary with Dunstan
and Melton, some deleted scenes, an "alternate ending" that's a joke,
a music video, separate selections of music from the film, and the theatrical
trailer.